The Handmaid's Tale

Series 1
- Episode 10
Night

Review

by David Butcher

Traditionally season finales are where writers of US dramas bring out the fireworks, go for broke. But when each beat of this extraordinary series has been so carefully controlled and measured in its drip-drip of anguish, surely they won’t cut loose now, will they?

No, they won’t: instead the tale of handmaid June’s sufferings in the thuggish theocracy of Gilead takes on fresh angles, new ways to crush her soul, in a finale that does justice to what has come before (and tees up series two nicely.)

As always, there’s saturated drama in each scene: a shocking ultimatum from Serena Waterford, who now knows of her husband’s sins; a detour to catch up with poor, ill-used Moira, now on the run; and one sequence, after June has to take a mysterious journey with Serena, that is so agonisingly sad it may trample your heart like a leaf.

Summary

Janine is sentenced to a brutal punishment for her recent acts of disobedience, which leaves Offred and her fellow Handmaids faced with an unthinkable choice between her life and their own safety. Serena Joy discovers how her husband has been keeping secrets from her, while Moira makes a desperate journey to the Canadian border having escaped imprisonment in Jezebels. Conclusion of the dystopian drama based on Margaret Atwood's novel and starring Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes and Madeline Brewer. Last in the series.